Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to the field of checkout terminals. More particularly, the present invention relates to a checkout terminal that may be used by a customer to pay for goods in a retail store.
Description of Related Art
Generally, there is a desire to increase throughput within a retail store, by allowing customers to pay for goods at a check-out terminal quickly and efficiently. Each retail store has a finite total store area, and at busy times the store may reach a saturation point of its capacity to handle customers. This may cause long delays, which is inconvenient for the customer.
Conversely, increasing the throughput capacity of checkout terminals within a retail store allows a checkout zone to be made smaller for a certain throughput, which has economic and environmental benefits by allowing the store to be smaller in total area. Also, increasing throughput allows the checkout zone to be made smaller in order to release floor area of the store for other purposes such as displaying goods or offering other services.
In the related art, it is known to provide a checkout terminal which is used by the customer themselves to pay for goods in a retail store. Typically, such a checkout terminal includes a scanning station where the customer scans their goods, a loading station where the customer loads their goods toward the scanner, and a bagging station where the customer packs their goods after scanning. A wide variety of checkout terminals have been developed, but further improvements are still desired. In particular, a checkout terminal is desired which is capable for use by customers who have many items in a large trolley.
The example embodiments have been provided with a view to addressing at least some of the difficulties that are encountered currently, whether those difficulties have been specifically mentioned herein, or will otherwise be appreciated from the discussion herein, such as by carrying out example embodiments.